Google is now a glorified venture-capital fund thanks to its SpaceX and Anthropic stakes

google's early bets on spacex and anthropic are paying off in a big way. one expert called them some of "the most successful venture bets any public company has ever made." the company's stake in spacex gives it a piece of the private space economy, while its anthropic investment ties it to the ai boom. the returns from these stakes are starting to look like a venture-capital fund's portfolio, not a search company's balance sheet. google's parent alphabet doesn't break out these holdings in detail, but the gains are large enough to shift how investors think about the business. the core ad business still prints cash, but these side bets are becoming a meaningful second engine.